


Applied Phlebotinum

by corydalis, Goodie_Whemper



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: (and other outdated memes), (i know lolol is supposed to parallel league of legends but league sucks so its WoW here), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/F, F/M, Humor, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn, also theres art, alternate title: yoosung gets rekt multiple times, and then in real life, leeroy jenkins - Freeform, lolol, man everyone is in it ok, mm is far too straight btw one of the mcs is male now, plus like four other losers, the 4 mcs are actually separate people and they make yoosungs life hell online, this is every route shoved into a blender and im making you drink it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-07 00:05:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11611776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corydalis/pseuds/corydalis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goodie_Whemper/pseuds/Goodie_Whemper
Summary: Ironicc:Do you think we’re maybe being a little bit unfair?Ironicc:This has been going on for weeks nowIronicc:And I’m starting to feel, um, a little bit bad for himIronicc:Maybe we should stop?Gnohomo:nahGnohomo:no way joseGnohomo:he started it. or have u forgotten about the Alkazine Eye >:?Gnohomo:if he couldn’t take the heat he should’ve stayed out of the bloody lava forge.Ironicc:I guess you’re right.Ironicc:Then could you at least maybe,Ironicc:Um,Ironicc:Stop teabagging his corpse?--Or, in which four losers lowkey cyberbully a kid in Korea, and accidentally get sucked into a party cult.





	Applied Phlebotinum

**Author's Note:**

> so one day i was sitting with my brother (corydalis, that voltron fic dude) playing mm and i said "hey but what if every route in mm happened they were all just different people and what if they all knew each other" and he looked back at me and said "that sounds like a trainwreck. do it." and like five months and six separate google docs later i shat this out.
> 
> he nearly lost his foot for this fic you have to read it for his memory

The warrior pauses, and checks his map, closing it occasionally to match up landmarks to his surroundings.

He’s sure this is the place - It's just as D’Arsile described. Elephantine tree trunks twist themselves in every direction but an exact arch over the cornflower blue path - creamy white and topped with a canopy of leaves in every shade of gold known to creature and man alike.

The leaves fall; yet never actually vacate the trees, nor hit the ground. It is always autumn here. This is by design.

The path stretches away in front of him and, if he has followed his quest correctly, he knows what awaits him at the other end. His fingers tremble. He equips his greatsword. He knows there shouldn't be any trouble, not here - but it has never hurt him to be prepared.

He begins along the pebbled trail.

Sunlight filters groggily through the foliage, and everything bleeds in sepia. The warrior patters down the uneven path, contemplating what awaits him.

It has been so long! Nearly three days of quests and dead end trails and secret meetings and finally it would all come to an end. At the end of the path is the Lùnastal Oracle’s shrine, and she will bestow upon him his reward. His decoration. The fruit of his labour is so completely within his grasp he can practically feel the brush of it underneath his fingertips, dancing only just beyond his grip. It ends here.

He comes to the end of the path and looks down - there is no other option. The clearing at the end is not a clearing at all but a chasm. A round welt upon the land framed with steep, chalky cliff face and frilled with more of the golden trees. At the bottom, he can only _just_ make out the distant glimmer of water. The shrine. It's underwater. The Oracle _is_ a naiad after all.

The warrior sighs. D’Arsile had said his resolve would be tested, even this close to the end. He sheaths his greatsword and takes several steps back before hurtling himself off of the edge.

He falls for no more than a moment before something strange happens. His fingers begin to glow.

He's a warrior. Not even a paladin, just a regular swordsman. No magical ability to speak of, so why on Avaroth should his fingertips glow? Unless this is part of the quest?

A second strange thing pushes itself into his bubble of awareness.

**-**

**World Chat; General: SYLV**

**Ironicc has cast a spell on you! [Walk on Water]**

**Gnohomo: whispers:** lol get fucked

**-**

Oh. Oh _fuck._

He dies upon impact.

 

*

 

Yoosung is being cyber bullied.

He thinks. He can't be sure. He can't be sure because he can't prove it's the same people, every time. Even though he absolutely knows it is.

He can see them now, two of them, dancing with each other and jumping on his corpse. He knows there are more. One of them keeps squatting on his face, which he thinks is unacceptable behaviour from a gnome with bright pink pigtails. The other one, the undead priest, is doing the cha cha slide.

If he's right, (and he knows he is) this has been going on for just over two weeks now. It had started small. Inconspicuous enough to not even blip his radar. He'd been waiting at the docks of Kaldoroth and some dark elf woman had sidled up to him and said, innocuously enough: “You know if you hit the Num Lock key it will tell you how long until the boat arrives?”

It hadn't, and he'd had to see the chat spammed with her laughter as he instead enabled auto run and walked straight into the sea. By the time he'd found the steps back up to the pier she'd disappeared, but the “HA’s” in the chatroom had remained, like little blisters.

And, ok, Yoosung is the first to admit it. He's prank bait. His genuine nature and tendency to have faith in people sometimes puts him at a disadvantage when it comes to the other, more unscrupulously spirited players. Yoosung has never really ever wanted to upset another player's experience - they bought the game just like him and deserve to get their money's worth without him running around trying to grief them. Turns out everybody else finds _his_ experience just seductively upsettable.

Sometimes it’s even a little funny. He'd laughed pretty hard when some guy had told him in the middle of a raid that he'd gone AFK and in order to undo it he needed to type out the /afk command. The whole 20 person party had then watched Yoosung accidentally log himself out of the game. That must have been pretty hilarious to see, and Yoosung appreciates a good practical joke.

But these guys are organised. Organised and relentless and, dare Yoosung think it? Bordering on kind of mean, almost. In the first week one of them had followed him around for the entire time he was online, a big Tauren (one of the man/cow beasts) fellow at least thirty levels above him who refused to say anything, but stuck to him like a great, hulking bovine shadow. Occasionally he'd help take down a mob Yoosung was fighting and it was like he was swatting flies, all bored and irksome. Then, just as Yoosung had resigned himself to his strange new silent companion and was about to log off for the night, the Tauren had shaken his battleaxe off of his back and lazily cleaved him in two.

By the time Yoosung had walked his ghost back to his body, the Tauren was gone, and had been replaced by a goblin who followed the exact same behaviour. This had only desisted after four days of shadowing, murdering, and changing shifts. Yoosung had broken the pattern by not playing for a day, and suddenly all stalking activities ceased.

Then, the real torment began.

Yoosung had so far been subjected to: fireworks being set off in his face during important cutscenes, the priest using her weird gravitational pull spell to launch him off of a zeppelin mid-flight, logging on to find all of his equipment stored in the guild bank and instead his entire inventory filled with stacks of fresh baguettes, and much more. One time he'd been minding his own business gathering herbs, only to look up and see the tiny gnome girl running at him full-speed and kiting the biggest mob of monsters he'd ever seen pulled at once. He'd felt bad for her, until she used her teleport and, intended victim vanished, the horde had settled upon Yoosung instead.

It's not even like he can escape to one of his alt characters, because they're getting ganked too. These people just seem to _know._ And it's never the same avatar more than twice. Yoosung doesn't even know how many people there really are. It could be ten. It could be fifteen. It could be one dude and he's one of those creepy people who are like insanely good at the game but because they don't have anything resembling a life outside of it. The guy his friends keep warning him he's going to turn into.

His guild don't like hearing about it anymore. “Just!!!! Fricking!!!!! Report Them!!!!!!!” his guild leader had said, before trying for the umpteenth time to go over their raid plans for that night.

But the only thing Yoosung hates more than public embarrassment is the idea of reporting someone. It makes him all jelly and squeamish inside. Makes his arms prickle with unpleasantness. So he does the next best thing. He complains in the RFA chatroom.

**-**

**OPENING: RFA CHATROOM - 01:18 AM**

**ONLINE: Jaehee Kang, ZEN, Yoosung** **★**

 **Yoosung** **★:** Aaaaarrrrgghhhhgg!! T_T

 **Jaehee Kang:** Again?

 **Yoosung** **★** **:** Again!!!

 **ZEN:** lol

**-**

He probably could have picked a better time to vent. A more receptive audience.

**-**

**Jaehee Kang:** I hesitate to ask, but

 **Jaehee Kang:** What did they do this time?

 **Yoosung☆:** They killed my character! Really sneakily!

 **ZEN:** A rogue?

 **Yoosung** **★:** 0_0

 **ZEN:** Hey! I know some stuff

 **Jaehee Kang:** I would not have expected any of that “stuff” to be LOLOL related.

 **Jaehee Kang:** But I suppose there is the argument that all knowledge is good knowledge to have.

 **Jaehee Kang:** So it is commendable that you would try to understand something as trivial as LOLOL, even though you have no use for it.

 **ZEN:** haha, thanks Jaehee

 **Yoosung** **★:** lol weren't we talking about me

 **Jaehee Kang:** Please excuse me. Go ahead, Yoosung.

 **ZEN:** Was it a rogue, though?

 **Yoosung** **★:** No!!!

 **Yoosung** **★:** If they wanted to kill me, they wouldn't need a rogue to do it. They've already proved that

 **Yoosung** **★:** They waited for me on a lake

 **Yoosung** **★:** I was trying to dive in, but they cast WW on me and I hit it instead and I died lol

 **Yoosung** **★:** ok it was maybe a little bit funny

 **Yoosung** **★:** no wait it's still mean  >:[

 **Yoosung** **★:** it took me three whole days to complete that quest chain

 **Yoosung** **★:** now how am I gonna get the Orb of Serafoth??

 **ZEN:**?? WW? Serafoth?

 **ZEN:** Don't understand all ur gamer jargon dude, lol

 **Yoosung** **★:** Oh, right

 **Yoosung** **★:** basically I was supposed to hit the water and swim

 **Yoosung** **★:** but they cast a Water Walking spell on me so the game would treat the water like ground

 **Yoosung** **★:** and I was pretty high up!! Not cool!!

 **Yoosung** **★:** I have to get back to my corpse now but they're still there just dancing on it and I don't know if they'll just kill me as soon as I resurrect

 **Jaehee Kang:** Dancing on your corpse?

 **ZEN:** Video games really are so violent nowadays

 **Yoosung** **★:** aaaarrrrghhhh

**\- 707 has entered the chatroom -**

**707:** Ohoho, what is this?

 **707:** Our brave and intrepid adventurer, Superman Yoosung, thwarted once again by these devious rapscallions!

 **707:** Will he ever be allowed to continue on his important quest, to slay demons and unite all of Avaroth, unperturbed by the impish naysayers??

 **707:** Will he ever unmask their true identities, and put an end to their mischievous exploits?!

 **ZEN:** It's not you, is it Seven?

 **707:** lol I wish

**-**

Yoosung had asked Seven, after the first week, if he'd hack into the game and help him figure out what was going on. He'd explained the situation. Seven’s response had been to laugh until Yoosung put the phone down.

**-**

**Yoosung** **★:** who's got ideas

 **Yoosung** **★:** officially taking advice here guys

 **Yoosung** **★:** I'm super open to suggestion!

 **707:** u sure are

 **Jaehee Kang:** This may sound silly but,

 **Jaehee Kang:** Why not simply report them, if you can?

 **Yoosung** **★:** Urgh

 **ZEN:** lol my advice is to stop getting so worked up about it

 **ZEN:** You'll get frown lines before ur 30

**User: ZEN has posted a photo**

**ZEN:** I have a daily massage routine for wrinkles that I work into my moisturising routine. Look how perfect my skin is!

 **ZEN:** I’ll send you the routine later if you want, top secret beauty tips from me to you! ;)

 **707:** It's on ur blog lol

 **Jaehee Kang:** That is an excellent idea! ^_^

 **Jaehee Kang:** Better yet, you could stop playing the game all together  and focus on your grades instead.

 **Yoosung** **★:** **....**

 **Yoosung** **★:** Like I said guys, I'm open to good suggestions

 **707:** ok Yoosung, if u really REALLY want

 **707:** I can hack the game

 **707:** just for u

 **707:** and find out who they are

 **Yoosung** **★:** Really??

 **707:** (๑ > ₃ ơ)♥

 **Yoosung** **★:** lol gross dude

 **Yoosung** **★:** ....

 **Jaehee Kang:** I think I should probably go to bed.

 **Jaehee Kang:** Partly because I have a presentation to attend in a few hours and I am very very tired.

 **Jaehee Kang:** And partly because when the inevitable lawsuit comes up from the game company over you and Seven hacking into private information, I do not wish to be called forth as a witness.

 **707:** nah, I'm a good hacker lol

 **Jaehee Kang:** Nevertheless.

 **ZEN:** lol goodnight Jaehee

 **ZEN:** Don't let CEO McSilverspoon work you too hard tomorrow.

 **Jaehee Kang:** Thank you, Zen. Goodnight ^_^

 **707:** night Jaehee

 **Yoosung** **★:** Night!

**\-  Jaehee Kang has gone offline -**

**707:** lmao she only said goodnight to Zen

 **707:** if I had any feelings i think they'd be hurt orz

 **ZEN:** She works way too hard. I worry about her

 **Yoosung** **★:** Seven! it's been like ten minutes!

 **Yoosung** **★:** whats going on??? Have you found them?

 **707:** Yoosung

 **707:** chill

 **707:** I'm just trying to work something out

 **ZEN:** work what out?

 **707:** what says “I respect you and the work you're doing” more?

 **707:** a fruit basket or 50,000 in-game gold?

 **707:** or should I just lay it all on the table and ask to join their guild?

 **707:** like the true romantic I am

 **Yoosung** **★:** It's a whole guild????

 **Yoosung** **★:** urrhgggh nevermind Seven, stop looking them up, you're not going to help me

 **707:** me??????

 **707:** not????? help???,??

 **Yoosung** **★:** shut up

 **707:** im offended

 **Yoosung** **★:** I think they're gone, I'm just gonna respawn, finish this quest and go to bed

 **ZEN:** Go to bed Yoosung.

 **707:** lmao good luck

 **\- Yoosung** **★** **has left the chatroom -**

 

Yoosung respawns, only to promptly be shivved in the back. He logs off.

 

*

 

**Guild Chat; General: SYLV**

**Gnohomo:** lmao that was sick

 **Gnohomo:** he thought we’d left WHAT A T O O L

 **Ironicc:** I’m just glad I timed the spell okay!

 **Ironicc:** If that had been a second later it wouldn’t have come off right at all!

 **Gnohomo:** lol ur a good healer tho

 **Gnohomo:** like u time things rly well. Like uve got practice, so

 **Ironicc:** Thanks! :)

 **Ironicc:** Um

 **Gnohomo:**?

 **Ironicc:** Do you think we’re maybe being a little bit unfair?

 **Ironicc:** This has been going on for weeks now

 **Ironicc:** And I’m starting to feel, um, a little bit bad for him

 **Gnohomo:** lol i like that u type out “um”

 **Gnohomo:** ur adorable ;3c

 **Ironicc:** hahahaha >///<

 **Ironicc:** But anyway

 **Ironicc:** Maybe we should stop?

 **Gnohomo:** nah

 **Gnohomo:** no way jose

 **Gnohomo:** he started it. or have u forgotten about the Alkazine Eye >:?

 **Gnohomo:** if he couldn’t take the heat he should’ve stayed out of the bloody lava forge.

 **Ironicc:** I guess you’re right.

 **Ironicc:** Then could you at least maybe,

 **Ironicc:** Um,

 **Ironicc:** Stop teabagging his corpse?

 

* * *

 

Every story’s got two sides. Or more, depending on the amount of characters involved.

Their side starts like this;

A month. A solid month, following this quest chain. It had been pure bullshit serendipity they’d known about its existence at all. Wallace - and it _would_ be Wallace - had been questing with a group of random (“but perfectly reputable, I swear on my _left tit-_ ”) trolls, who at the end of a dungeon had gone for a round of virtual drinks in the nearest virtual tavern and, virtually drunk, got to talking. Got to talking about something that was no more than a myth. A legend, which only came out to snake around the drunken mist of loose-tongued players when the night was already creeping into the day.

And normally, they’d pay it no mind. Wallace has a history of coming up with some impressive levels of bullshit. Like, she has managed to spin some flat-out, mind bendingly stupid and outrageous lies. Bullshit so extravagant she sometimes half-believes it herself.

But Jihae had been with her, and you could give Jihae your bank account details and disappear for a month, winding up on the coast of Boca Raton with no underwear and when you got back she’d thrust the card back into your palms with her eyes still closed and squeak “How was your trip?” Jihae is trustworthy. Jihae had validated her story.

And it has come to this. The end of a questline so long and convoluted and with so many useless dead ends and sleepless nights that Cole wondered if they’d even live to see the end of it before committing to a group murder-suicide pact. As guild leader, and also the only one with even a gram of brains, he knows it is his job to keep that from happening, but the _amount_ of times he’s wanted to kick Wallace’s gnomey little face in with his big tauren hooves and send her flying across the map. And then Gemma would have argued with him because Gemma just _eats, breathes and shits_ arguing with him. And then Jihae would probably have gotten upset. Or alternatively just, logged off in the middle of a battleground and left him to field a group of headless chickens with no healer. Sometimes she’s petty like that.

It ends tonight. God willing.

**Guild Chat; General: STRM**

**LegenDairy:** Are we ready?

 **SuccuBiteMe:** Ready

 **Ironicc:** Ready!

 **Gnohomo:** Aye aye cap’n

 **LegenDairy:** Ok

 **LegenDairy:** Wait, fuck, we forgot to put Skype back on

 **LegenDairy:** Everyone got their headsets? Webcams?

 **SuccuBiteMe:** Oh my God! Yes! Just press the fucking button already.

**-**

The dark elf woman starts jumping impatiently in place. The gnome, not wanting to be left out, jumps with her.

Cole rubs his temples gently, before tapping his keyboard and initiating the video call. Four small windows, three black, one displaying his own tired, hollow-eyed expression, jump onto his second screen.

“Can everyone hear me?”

On his main monitor, the corpse priest starts dancing the cha cha slide.

“I wish they would update the dance animations.” Jihae’s voice crackles wistfully into his headphones. “It’s been the same one since the patch three years ago.”

“You don’t like the cha cha slide?” Gemma’s voice, ringing in crystal clear - a lovely side effect of her expensive broadband package and resplendent equipment setup. To Cole, all this means is that he can hear her insubordination with perfect clarity. One of life’s greatest joys.

“I _love_ the cha cha slide,” Jihae replies, with fervor. “But the male undead get a cool punk head-thrashing animation. Even the gnomes get the dance from Don’t Cha by the Pussycat Dolls.”

As if in response, Wallace commands her avatar to dance on-screen, swaying comically tiny hips to a non-existent beat.

“Love me a bit of Pussycat Dolls,” she says, and Cole can hear her grin through the mic.

“Ok, you know what? I’m going to take that all as a “yes Cole, we can hear you”. Why can’t I see any of you? Have you got your webcams turned on?”

“I have, it’s just taking a while to load. I’ll see you soon!”

“Bollocks, sorry, I’ll do it now.”

“I don’t feel like it.”

“ _Gemma.”_

“Well, I don’t!”

“Try.”

“ _Fine.”_

 

One by one, Jihae, Wallace and Gemma shift into view. Cole curses. Jihae and him look suitably sleepless and shitty and Wallace has an extra layer of mania absorbed into her usual levels of mania but Gemma looks immaculate, like she’s just stepped out of a salon. Red hair all shiny and skin un-pimply. To Cole, this means she hasn’t been pulling her weight. He makes a mental note to send her hunting for guild resources later. She won’t do it, but he’ll feel better for having ordered it.

“Okay.” Cole rolls his neck until it clicks. “Are we ready?”

“Yes!”

“Gemma, summon the Boss.”

Gemma’s avatar steps forward, setting upon the grass a stone tablet with runic carvings. Her arms wave above it and it begins to glow.

“Ok, buffs, ready. Everyone’s had the dwarf bread for the constitution boost? Good. Three, two, one…”

Wallace lets out an unholy war scream and the battle begins.

It lasts about twenty minutes.

They have prepared, but the boss - a huge white hound with three heads and icicles for teeth - is a _rare ass fucking boss_ and therefore not programmed to make this easy for them. By minute twelve, they have ran out of potions and mana. By minute seventeen, everyone has died except Jihae, who is running around the glade, dodging his massive swipes and waiting for her Group Resurrect spell to finish it’s cooldown.

By twenty minutes and forty-eight seconds, Jihae chances it and stands in place to cast a final Smite. The claws come down. The spell is shot. They die simultaneously.

“YEEEEEAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”

Cole flinches as the screech punches him in the ears, along with a thump as she bashes her desk with both fists. “Wallace, you’re so fucking _loud??_ Quit it.”

“WE DID IT THOUGH. JIHAE I COULD KISS YOU.”

Jihae laughs, and on the video feed they see her brush her bangs out of her eyes bashfully. “We’re all dead though!”

“It’s fine,” Cole says, allowing relief and the ghost of a grin to creep into his voice. “We’ll just corpse-walk back to our bodies.”

“Yeah. Not me. I’ll wait here for a ressurect.” Gemma smiles at them lazily, picking at her manicure - trying to come off all cool and unbothered but there’s a triumphant glint in her eyes.

“Fine. Whatever, you can keep an eye on things.”

“Cool.”

“We got absolutely _rinsed_. But I told you, didn’t I? I told you it was real and none of you believed me, but now we’re going to roll for the Alkazine Eye, so you can all start thanking me now. I will wait.”

Jihae mock-bows to the webcam. “Thank you, Oh Wise Wallace.”

Wallace beams, baring her weird-ass pointy teeth and flicking her spiky bob all, as she would put it, “up herself.” “No worries, love.”

Cole leans back sleepily, setting his avatar’s ghost to follow Jihae’s. He half considers taking a nap while she walks him back to his corpse.

His thoughts are broken when his eyes flick to Gemma’s face.

“Um, guys? Something’s happening.”

Cole leans forward. “What?”

“There’s a guy, poking around the glen.” Gemma squints at her screen, hair falling in front of her eyes.

“What else is he doing?”

“Nothing, he’s just looking around. Wait, now he’s going towards the boss corpse.”

“Ok, everyone relax. It’s not like he can loot it if he didn’t kill it.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

There is a pause.

“Guys, the corpse stopped glittering.”

“What?”

“ _What??”_

“He’s… he’s leaving. Oh my god. Guys.”

“Gemma, if this is a joke it’s not fucking funny.”

“No guys, I’m deadly serious. I think he just stole our loot.”

“Well, go after him!”

“With what _fucking body?”_

Cole leans forward, as though it might make his ghost run faster. Two minutes later the three of them burst into the glen, resurrect themselves and then Gemma and immediately jump towards the boss’s remains.

“It’s… It’s fucking gone.”

“Can we, um, get it back?” Jihae asks, biting her lip.

“It was a bind on pickup!” Wallace wails. “I’ll _murder_ that little spunktrumpet. Gemma, what did he look like?”

“Dude, he was just like, a boring ass human warrior. Generic as fuck.”

“Then I’ll murder them _all.”_

“Um, could we summon him again?”

“Single-use summon. We’d have to do-” Gemma takes a deep, rattling breath of rage. “We’d have to do the _entire quest chain again.”_

The headphones vibrate with pained howling.

“Everyone, calm down!” Cole hisses, leaning back and rubbing his temples “What was his name, Gemma?” he asks slowly.

She screws up her nose in thought. “Something fucking stupid. Uhhhh. Superman? SupermanUsung. That’s it.”

“Do we, um, report him?”

“No… He shouldn’t even have been able to do that. The game must have glitched, somehow. Besides,” here he shoots a look at Wallace. “We’re still on thin ice with the server moderators.”

“That wasn't my _fault!_ I-”

Gemma throws up a hand for silence. Bossy and impertinent, but effective. “We can’t just let this _stand.”_

“Then what do we do?”

Everyone goes quiet. Collectively, they look to their webcams - and Cole knows exactly who’s video feed they’re watching. They wait.

He takes his fingers away from his forehead, and steeples them in front of his nose.

“It’s simple,” he says. “We kill, the Superman.”

“Oh my fucking _God_.”

“Shut up, Gemma.”

 

* * *

 

 

The boy sighs, and rubs his eyes. He leans back, taking a swig of Gatorade and stretching out in his chair. Vile stuff, but the sugar pushes him through the sleep fog of the small hours, and sacrifice is a way of life. He squints at his monitor. 04:03 in the morning. Six hours should warrant a break, if only for ten minutes. A quick walk around the compound, and then back to work.

He gets up, stretching his legs individually until his knees pop. Once he is in the corridor, he sets himself an easy gait, a brisk sort of step. Thinking pace.

Some of the others pass him as he ambles around the grounds in the crisp, watery morning light and tip their fingers to their foreheads. “Brother,” they mumble, all bashful but resolute. That's subordinates for you. Some of them stare at him from afar, thinking they’re being at all discreet. They are not, but it doesn’t bother him. He knows why. He knows how he walks.

The boy is graceful. He’s been told this many a time. He moves like water, languid and dreamlike. Like if you looked down you wouldn’t see his feet, and he’s proud of this; and ashamed. Ashamed _because_ he is proud. He knows that pride is a sin, the Savior - _beautiful, most holy Savior;_ perfect _Savior_ \- has explained in her teachings. She reiterates it every Mass. But it’s a pride of his. He can’t help it. He has so few.

They’re so, _so close._

The mission. They’re so close it hurts. Like it’s fire they can’t wait to touch. And the _real_ pain is in the not being able to move further. Their momentum sits there like a poorly constructed circuit, energy crackling but with nowhere to go, so it hums noisily in his fingers and throat, fretful and raw. It jumps out and snaps at the others, sometimes, and it is for that he pays his penance.

He’s not _that_ penitent though. They all understand what they're up against. How easily this could all slip through their fingers. They've been working so hard, for so _long_ , and too much of that time has rotted away in dead ends. He is not the only one crackling.

They need more information. Information is key. He has spent far too many hours of the recent months sneaking; trying to burn quiet holes into firewalls and always, _every single time,_ he has to patch them back up and disappear before any real information has actually managed to squeeze through.

The boy comes to a long bench overlooking the courtyard. He sits down heavily.

He had asked once, desperate, for permission to launch a full-scale attack on the server. As much as it blisters him to think the thought, the firewalls ( _his_ firewalls - he whose name shall not be _spat)_ are sound. Their defences are a marvel. They stitch themselves shut before he has a chance to register their openness and it _burns him_ , swallows him whole. But pride is a sin, so defeat he accepted. A full-frontal attack would leave them no time to recover. No more of this sneaking around nonsense. You can sew up a bullet wound, but a C4 explosion, he'd like to see them try. He asked for permission.

She'd shown him the error of his ways. He considered the slap a blessing, and then she explained. No explosion, you're approaching it wrong. Try an explosion and all you'll break into is a dead vault of dead information. Information she has already, locked away in her memories. Her purgatory. The ashes of her escape (he loves the tale of her escape. It is so similar to his own.) We need another angle. This is his purpose! Use his big brain. Find her another angle.

The boy shifts his leg. He kicks the stone foot of the bench loosely, just to feel it reverberate in his shin bone.

He wants to fulfil his purpose.

It would be so much easier, he thinks, if they could just walk in and take it. Yes, most of the information would be dead; but dead does not equate useless. They can still build Magenta. They don't necessarily _need_ new recruits.

She's promised him, _he_ wouldn't be recruited anyway. She's promised him.

It would be easier if she could just walk back in, and start the organisation again. They'd have access to info faster than they could consume it - _fresh_ info. It would be easier if she could be in two places at once. If that bridge wasn't already burnt.

Ha! He makes himself laugh. Two of the _Savior!_ As if someone so venerable and holy and sacramental could just be-

Two of her.

Oh. _Oh!_ Oh he is so _stupid!_ He is blind! More blind even, than the disgraced one. Two of her! Another Savior!

What he needs is not bullets, and especially not any C4. What he needs is a… a hypodermic needle. Yes! A puncture so small and unassuming it practically heals itself - no need for stitches! And it wouldn't be until the poison was already infused with their heretical sludge of a bloodstream that they’d even know they'd been pricked! Tricked! Hahaha.

Hahahaha!

Two jokes in one sitting. And outward laughter! He’ll have to keep an eye on that. This is no time to collapse into insanity.

A plan begins to formulate.

 

* * *

 

 

Seven wakes up.

He does this because, whilst dreaming of competing in the Formula 1 Grand Prix after having spun out of control and the commentators saying that his crash would be unrecoverable (but he won by a landslide anyway, so fuck you Eddie and Murray) a particularly violent swerve causes him to slap his Dr. Pepper can off of the desk and into his own lap.

He doesn’t move for a moment, the initial shock having worn off and being replaced by deep-seated exasperation. The soda drips off of his leg stickily. Of course, it had gone warm and flat long ago.

He had _just_ been about to get into it with Michael Schumacher. How _dare_ he accuse Seven of cheating by replacing everyone else’s engine oil with french fry grease! And then, to say it to a _tabloid magazine._ Even if it were true, there’s such a thing as losing gracefully. Spirit of competition and all that.

Seven can still hear him in his head, laughing menacingly. Creepy.

He gets up eventually, setting the soda can the right side up and stretching. He glances at his monitor before loping off to grab a kitchen towel for the floor.

It hasn’t gotten on the desk. That is the important thing. Years of fine-tuning his lifestyle has allowed him develop, even in sleep, a instinct for knocking things _away_ from his equipment, rather than towards. He scrunches the towel up and aims it into the washbasket in the kitchen, hitting it directly in the centre. Score! Seven: 59, Gravity: 132. Behold, the next NBA Champion; Seven Oh Seven! His week is improving by the second.

What was he supposed to be doing again? Oh yeah. Working. Working like a little bee. Busy little worker bee Seven. Seven, Defender Of Justice. Bee justice! He should watch Bee Movie again. Or make another compilation and send it to Yoosung. Oh man, he should make one of those “every time _ happens it gets faster” videos for Bee Movie again and send it to Yoosung, but edit it so that every character has his face on it. He should do it now. How’s Yoosung doing?

He picks up his phone.

S: Hey Yoosunggg!! How are u doing?

Y: Can’t talk, stuck in an elevator T_T

S: Whaaaaaaaaaat??? Bro are u ok?

Y: Noo no not irl. In LOLOL

Y: These guys are making it so i can’t get out of the elevator, I just keep riding it up and down

Y: They’ve blocked both entrances and for some reason I can’t use my Hearthstone bc it’s locked to the middle of the Iblis Iron Forge so if I use it to teleport away I’ll just burn to death over and over

Y: I think they might have had something to do with that too

Y: I’ve already lost my place in the battleground queue I’ve been stuck here for half an hour >:[

S: lol this is getting kinda sad bro. it’s been like over a month now.

Y: Hey, can you help?

S: how?

Y: Idk, come and scare them away or something

Y: I mean, these guys are really good players but I still don’t think they’re better than you. Duel them maybe?

Y: I’m going a little nuts here!

S: U want me to fight for ur honor

Y: …. If u want to put it like that.

S: hmmmmm

S: can I instead interest you in another Bee Movie compilation?

Y: NO. My inbox hasn’t recovered from that time you sent me the entire script.

S: can’t believe u didn’t get it and just read till the end lmfao

Y: I thought it was some cool hidden message I just didn’t get!

S: so that’s a hard pass then

Y: aaarrghhhh just forget it

Y: I’m gonna wait until one of them gets bored and kills me

S: give them my love

Hahahaha Yoosung. What a guy. What was he doing again?

Ugh. Work.

Seven slumps in his seat so that his back is almost vertical with the chair, and stretches his arm out as far as it will go. His pinky brushes against the mouse, moving it and waking his screen. He peeks at the monitor from over his glasses, chin pressed against his chest.

And for a moment - just a moment - it wobbles.

Then the screen is returned to normal. No harm no foul. No weird greenish bubbly effects that evaporate as soon as he looks at them.

And Seven knows a lot better than that.

Sitting up so fast his spine should have snapped like chalk, his fingers begin tapping rapidly on the keyboard and he initiates a full-scale sweep of his equipment. Then his backup equipment. Then his old drives. Then the equipment that isn’t his but he keeps tabs on. Then the equipment he keeps tabs on unless you were to ask him in a court of law, in which case no your Honour, I’ve never seen this equipment before in my life. What would I be doing with a government satellite anyway? Haha, your Honour, you’re such a tease. We should get drinks later. What do you mean “illegal to flirt with the judge?” What do you _mean_ “in contempt of court?” And so forth.

The process takes well over an hour. It could have been done in two thirds of the time, but Seven, despite appearances, likes to be thorough. Eventually, once he has satisfied himself that nothing has been leaked into or out of any of his devices, he relaxes his shoulders. This is what he gets for buying himself the experimental new plasma screen. They warned him it would burn out easily - but the colours are so pretty. Or maybe he’s just working too hard. He really should stop dozing off at his desk - or why did he buy himself the racecar bed?

Nevermind. He knows why he bought the racecar bed. The racecar bed can honk to the tune of Yankee doodle. The racecar bed has a functioning motor. The racecar bed is sick.

Just to be safe, he’ll do another manual sweep tomorrow. He’s rigged it so his computer does an automatic check for bugs every half hour, but sometimes it’s best to just go for it and get your hands dirty. That’s what she said. Haha.

Seven also, somewhere in his junk pile, has a device that will do an apartment-wide sweep for actual bugs. He’d had to scrap that project, however, because he was having problems with the strength of the neurotoxin spray. It’d have been a real shame for Vanderwood to make it all the way through his security system one day to find him twitching and foaming on the floor for the sake of a few cockroaches. For him. Vanderwood probably wouldn’t have minded that much.

Something is nagging at him.

Seven leaves his desk chair for the second time at 5:47 am in the morning and trudges into his bedroom, falling onto his mattress and not quite managing to avoid smacking his head off of the plastic steering wheel, which honks indignantly. What is it?

Oh yeah, he thinks groggily, yawning and allowing the darkness to creep into him slowly. Michael Schumacher. His dream. That creepy-ass laugh.

His laugh didn’t even sound German. It sounded more like Seven’s own laugh, if he were doing, like, a cliché Bond Villain impersonation.

Actually, that sounds like fun. Seven makes a mental note to try that laugh tomorrow. Preferably when Vanderwood is around.

He falls asleep. No plans formulate, but he is presented another opportunity to go toe to toe against Michael Schumacher.


End file.
